Impact of the medium on grounding

Clark and Brennan's paper (1991) offer a very interesting framework to discriminate the impacts of media on commmunication, particularly on the grounding process (= the process of building a common understanding of the situation carried out by the participants).
Grounding changes with the communication medium. For instance, in a face-to-face conversation, saying « ok » is an easy sign of acknowledgement and grounding. The situation is very different in a chat or a mud (i.e. multi-user dungeon). Indeed, timing precisely an acknowledgement is much more difficult, the « ok » can be understood as an interruption. Clark and Brennan (1991) stress the fact that the acknowledgement cost is higher in the chat case. This is due to the least collaborative effort rule. The effort of making something (producing an utterance, repairing it ) depends on the medium. Thus grounding is affected.

Here are constraints and examples ((inspired from Clark and Brennan, 1991) :

Constraints

Definitions

Examples of medium
satisfying the constraint

Copresence

Participants A and B share the
same physical environment

Face-to-face conversation

Visibility

A and B are visible to each
other

Videoconference and
face-to-face conversation

Audibility

A and B communicate by speaking

Telephone, Videoconference and
face-to-face conversation

Cotemporality

B receives at roughly the same
time as A produces

Chat, Telephone,
Videoconference and face-to-face conversation but not in e-mail

Simultaneity

A and B can send and receive
at once and simultaneoulsy

Chat, Telephone,
Videoconference and face-to-face conversation

Sequentiality

As and Bs turns cannot get
out of sequence

Chat, Telephone,
Videoconference and face-to-face conversation but not in e-mail